Regiments

Seventh Infantry Division had
been the last large American occupation unit in Japan to be sent to Korea. It
had never been up to strength, and the long delay in getting it to Korea had
deprived it of many of the trained professionals who had filled its ranks in the
early months of 1950; the division had served, for a time, as a man-power pool
from which other units bound for Korea had filled their ranks. While large
numbers of Regulars had arrived from the States to undertake the Inch'ŏn-Sŏul
battles with the 7th Infantry Division, most of the new arrivals were recently
inducted enlistees and draftees who had had the luck or misfortune to complete
their basic training immediately prior to their shipment overseas. And
approximately one in five of the division's line infantrymen was a South Korean,
a man or a boy who had been dragooned into the service of his country by brute
force.

ASSAULT 103

Though the professionals who staffed and led the regiments and
battalions had had to struggle with their mixed manpower bag, they brought their
units through Inch'ŏn-Sŏul with honor and acclaim. By the time 7th Infantry
Division had been committed to the drive on the Yalu in northeastern Korea, it
seemed a steady, seasoned combat force. Two of its regiments — the 31st and 32nd
— had lost their colors to the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942, and both had
been barred by tradition from service in the United States until they redeemed
themselves. They had both done so in the Inch'ŏn-Sŏul fighting, and that boost
had helped prepare them for the next round of battle. Or so it seemed. For no
amount of training and time spent in combat could have prepared any group of
soldiers for the ordeal that was to befall the thirty-five hundred members of
7th Infantry Division who passed through Hagaru-ri on November 26 and 27, 1950.